Conventional client-server software allows conventional clients residing on a client machine to access the functions provided by a server residing on a server machine. For example, some conventional client-server software provides backup and restore of data residing on client machines. In order to backup data, software residing on a client machine or a user utilizing the client machine invokes the conventional client. The conventional client then requests the conventional server to back up the data and passes the data to the conventional server. The conventional server stores the data and provides a response to the conventional client indicating that the data has been successfully stored. When the data is to be restored, the conventional client sends a request for the data to the conventional server. In response, the conventional server provides a copy of the stored data to the conventional client.
It is often desirable for client-server software to work with many different client platforms or server platforms. A client platform can be viewed as a particular type of client machine or operating system. Similarly, a server platform can be viewed as a particular type of server machine. Compatibility with different platforms may be especially desirable for client platforms. This is because there is a large number of operating system platforms that users wish to have their clients on. A network may have many client machines using many different client platforms. All of these platforms are often desired to be used with the same server. Consequently, the client-server software should be compatible with all of the desired client platforms.
In order to allow the conventional client-server software to function with different client platforms, the conventional client can be ported to new client platforms. Typically, porting the conventional client entails several steps including compiling the conventional client on each new client platform, determining the errors occurring during compilation and correcting these compilation errors. Porting the conventional client further includes running an existing conventional client on each new client platform, determining the errors which result, and modifying the code for the existing conventional client until the conventional client functions correctly with each new client platform. Thus, conventional client-server software functions on multiple client platforms by providing a conventional client that has been ported to each conventional platform.
Although porting the conventional client to new client platforms allows the conventional client-server software to function with new client platforms, this process can be extremely time consuming and expensive. In addition, the porting process may need to be repeated for a new version of a client platform to which the conventional client has already been ported. The porting process may need to be repeated because there is no guarantee that the conventional client will function with certain aspects of the new version of the client platform. Thus, ensuring that the client-server software remains compatible with new versions of existing client platforms is also expensive and time consuming. In addition, new clients platforms continue to be developed. In order to allow the client-server software to be used with networks which utilize the new client platforms, the existing client must be ported to these new platforms. Thus, porting must be continually carried out to allow the client-server software to be used with newly developed client platforms.
Another conventional method of ensuring that the conventional client-server software can function with a variety of client platforms would be to provide a conventional client in a platform independent language, such as JAVA. Such a conventional client would be compatible with many client platforms. However, in order to provide such a conventional platform independent client, the conventional client would have to be rewritten in JAVA and debugged. This would require a very significant additional investment in time and resources. It would also mean that the substantial investment of time and resources in the conventional platform dependent client would be abandoned. In addition, a platform independent language such as JAVA is relatively slow. Thus, performance of a conventional client-server software having a conventional client written in JAVA may suffer. Such a JAVA client would also need a JAVA virtual machine, which executes JAVA programs. This environment may not be available on all client machines. Moreover, JAVA, like some other so-called platform independent languages, may not be fully platform independent in all cases.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for more easily providing client-server software which can be compatible with other client platforms. The present invention addresses such a need.